Is the Australian festival industry in crisis?

With Splendour in the Grass and Groovin The Moo both cancelled for 2024, the health of the Australian festival industry has become a topic of national concern. The loss of these two major events follows the cancellation of various smaller events, including Tent Pole, Vintage Vibes and This That.

A couple of weeks after Splendour’s cancellation, Creative Australia released its Soundcheck report, which provides statistical insight into the scope and health of the festival sector. There were 535 music festivals in Australia in the 2022-23 financial year, more per capita than in the UK. 56% of festivals reported a profit, with the highest profit a cool $47.4 million. Meanwhile, 35% per cent of festivals reported a deficit and 8% broke even.

So, is the festival industry facing an existential crisis? Or is it more an issue of oversupply? “I think it is a crisis that we’re facing,” says Olly Arkins, managing director of the Australian Festival Association (AFA.) “And it’s largely due to factors that are out of our control.”

You don’t need to be an industry expert to see how the events of the last five years might’ve negatively impacted the festival industry. A confluence of government regulation, Covid, extreme weather and economic instability has disrupted festivals big and small.

The AFA formed in 2018 in response to former NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s harsh regulatory proposals, which became known as The War on Festivals. “The government in our biggest state tried to shut down the industry,” says Arkins.

But the NSW Liberals’ anti-festival crusade was only the beginning. “Then we had the bushfires over the Black Summer and then rolled into the Covid pandemic, which essentially put us out of business for two years,” Arkins says.

Optimism returned once the population was vaccinated and lockdowns lifted at the end of 2021. “There was a bunch of money pumped into the industry through various state supports but also the federal government,” says Arkins, referring to the federal government’s Live Music Australia grant program.

But then came the wet weather, which led to last-minute scrubbings of events such as Strawberry Fields and Hopkins Creek, and gave us the fiasco that was Splendour in the Mud. Rising interest rates and the cost of living crisis dealt the next blow.

“It’s just been a perfect storm, which has driven up costs for us and knocked confidence on the audience side,” says Arkins.

READ: All the music festivals in Australia in 2025/26

A change in ticket-purchasing behaviour has thrown another spanner in the works. Post-Covid, punters have been delaying the purchase of tickets until much closer to an event’s date. “It’s happening nationally,” says Arkins, “and it’s totally changed how a promoter budgets and approaches the risks around putting on an event.”

Festivals would traditionally direct their marketing resources towards the initial on-sale date, intending to sell the majority of tickets within a couple of hours or days. But the change in buying habits necessitates a major rethink.

“We’ve heard examples of people having to increase their marketing spend by ten times because of that drip-feed of ticket buying,” Arkins says. “When costs are up across the board, it tightens your margins even more.”

Arkins is reluctant to say there are too many festivals in Australia, but they acknowledge that the rise in operational costs – which has affected everything from suppliers to freight, transport and insurance – has increased the financial risk for all festivals.

“I think the challenges that we’re facing coming out of Covid are probably going to have a greater impact because there are so many [festivals,]” Arkins says. “If the likes of Splendour and Groovin The Moo are finding it difficult to sell tickets and make the economics of a festival work, it does give me cause for concern that a lot of the smaller ones will struggle even more-so.”

So, what’s the solution? The AFA is calling on the federal and state governments to provide extra funding. “The bare minimum is that the federal government should extend the Live Music Australia grants in the upcoming budget and increase the maximum grant amounts and the pool of funds available,” says Arkins.

The AFA has requested that the NSW Labor government reduce the cost of liquor licensing, medical and ambulance services, and the user pays police set-up, which currently requires festival organisers to cough up tens of thousands of dollars for officers to patrol their events. Festivalgoers are encouraged to buy their tickets early.

Arkins argues that all Australian music fans should care about the survival of events such as Splendour in the Grass and Groovin The Moo, even if they’re not in these festivals’ target demographic. “I think everyone can agree that Splendour is essentially our Glastonbury, our Coachella. The impact for Aussie artists on being able to play at that festival and be on that lineup is huge.

“We are all reliant on each other for success: artists, promoters, agents, labels, management – all of that.”